80 Blocks From Tiffany’s

Found via BoingBoing, 80 Blocks From Tiffany’s (here in 8 parts on YouTube) is an interesting late-70’s doc on street gangs in New York (primarily the Savage Skulls and the Savage Nomads). Here’s the Amazon entry for the VHS tape, which mentions The Education of Sonny Carson - I’ll have to check that out when I get Netflix again. That last link has a lot of YouTube clips from Sonny Carson and other actual gang footage from the 70s.

Here’s an article on freakonomics.com featuring Q & A with Sudhir Venkatesh, the then-grad student written about in Freakonomics who is now a professor of sociology at Columbia.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Street Gangs But Didn’t Know Who To Ask

Venkatesh will publish a book, Gang Leader for a Day, in early 2008.

(Note: the above contains two sentences directly cut and pasted from the linked article. If anyone has a problem with that let me know.)

Ahh, YouTube always has something better than what’s on the actual TV. Other Video sites too!

Once again, politics rears its ugly head

I’ve been asked several times recently which candidate for president I support, and I’ve had to answer honestly that I don’t know. I mean, I support Dennis Kucinich with all my heart, but I don’t know if he’s electable in our idiot-crowded, shallow, appearance-obsessed nation who have been hoodwinked by the corporate profiteers to be blind to any meaningful change. What I usually say after that is that I don’t know enough about the other candidates to know which one is the least awful.

I figure it’s time I started learning, and keeping an eye to whether Kucinich may actually *be* electable (he’s the only person besides Kerry to get votes in the Democratic primary ‘04 if I remember correctly.) I was procrastinating in my job search a little this morning, and followed a link to a test which compiles data from 2decide.com, neither of which I’ve vetted in any way, but both seem helpful.

My test results were predictable, but I was a little disappointed that neither of the candidates getting lots of press (Obama and Clinton) agreed with me on some pretty key issues (Patriot Act, Same-Sex Marriage, Border Fence). Kucinich scored the most points in agreement with me, 69, and had no disagreements. The next down is Gravel, with 48 points (a much less sexy number), who I’ve never heard of but am going to look into a little bit. Edwards was next, but we disagree on too much.

During the composition of this post, the exact shape and nature of my own cowardice has become clear to me. I think from now on I have a really simple answer to the question of what candidate I support, and it’s time to see if there are any openings in his campaign in NYC. It’s funny to think that a few years ago, I assumed I’d vote for a woman, any woman, or a person of color, because I assumed they would signify the most change. Perhaps my opinions have changed because some people give up too many of their ideals to get ahead. Perhaps I’ve just grown up. Anyway, I’m pretty sure who I’ll be voting for.